Film A Face in the Crowd (Elia Kazan, 1957)

Directed by Elia Kazan. Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Lee Remick, Walter Matthau (127 min.)Lonesone Rhodes, a country boy with the gift of gab, is discovered by an ambitious producer and catapulted into, and corrupted by, television fame. A Face in the Crowd was ahead of its time in anticipating mass media power; a cautionary tale that many 1950s reviewers viewed as both unrealistic and unpatriotic. What an interesting and scary character that Andy Griffith plays!